I personally think the sword dash exploit, commonly used to board ships in PvP, should either be:
- Confirmed as a valid game mechanic and taught to new players similarly to other actual game mechanics
Or - Confirmed to be an exploit that will be removed at some point
I'm a pretty casual player, I've probably only played 30H since the games release (and I've been playing since beta). I also typically play by myself on a sloop. I've really enjoyed the game so far, and have gotten a great feeling of satisfaction when I've been able to board an enemy ship. I've always felt like I did something successful, whether it was landing that tricky shot shooting myself out of a cannon, or I simply outmaneuvered the other ship to the point where I had an opening to jump onto their ship.
However, often when I have been boarded I didn't feel like I had necessarily done something wrong. Too often there was just suddenly someone aboard my ship, and it always shocked me because it made no logical sense how they had managed to accomplish this feat. I didn't feel as if I had been outmaneuvered or outsmarted, just confused. Until yesterday watching a clip on Reddit, and seeing the sword dash exploit abused to board an enemy ship.
Now although I personally would prefer to sail a sea where this exploit does not exist, that is not what this post is about, because it's existence is not what caused me such a problem over the last year. It was the fact that I didn't know it even existed. I can absolutely see why players would like it to remain in the game, as it's a mechanic they have learned and gotten used to, but if it does stick around I'm just asking for it to be hinted at in some way in the game, similar to the intentional techniques that exist in the game.
Even if it is planned to be removed when enough other mechanics exist to replace it (the row boats, potentially swinging on ropes to nearby ships?, etc), I think this single mechanic is the biggest barrier to entry I've experienced in this game, and even just a tavern hand saying "Did you know you can do this?" would be really helpful to the more n00b among us!
Regardless, thanks devs for all your hard work and I've really enjoyed watching the game progress over the last year. You've really accomplished something special that I hope lives on for years to come.